Our State Bird

[Bill Dix]

D90; 80-400 VR @ 400mm. ISO 800. f/7.1. 1/1250s. -0.3 EV. Tripod. Large crop.

American Goldfinch, taken out of my back door several days ago. Perch set up next to thistle feeder and water bubbler. BG is the woods in the distance. This was in deep shade at around 9 AM. Color may be overdone; I don't usually like the results that are suggested by Auto Levels, but tried it this time and got this (except it looked too blue so I backed off the blue channel and desaturated the yellow hotspot in the throat just a bit). Adult male Goldfinches can be brighter than this, but the females and juveniles like this one are not quite so vivid as appears here. C&C appreciated.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Bill

Glad you mention the Auto Levels In PS is best not to use them, will get you in trouble more often than not.

Part of the color problem is noise related, if you remove the noise on the bird color will look slightly different, did well in reducing saturation and wish it was a bit sharper ... large crop don't help much !!!

[Dave Mills]

Hi Bill, Since this is already a large crop I won't recommend cropping any more. As Al stated noise is an issue in the image. To my eye,seeing these birds often, the color doesn't appear that far off...might need just a bit of tweaking.

[Bill Dix]

Hi Bill

Glad you mention the Auto Levels In PS is best not to use them, will get you in trouble more often than not.

Part of the color problem is noise related, if you remove the noise on the bird color will look slightly different, did well in reducing saturation and wish it was a bit sharper ... large crop don't help much !!!

Thanks Al. I virtually never use Auto Levels, but I do check it out of curiosity from time to time to see if it will give me any ideas, and 99% of the time it produces something awful. I did notice the noise, but didn't want to use NR and lose any more IQ than I already did with the crop.

[Bill Dix]

Hi Bill, Since this is already a large crop I won't recommend cropping any more. As Al stated noise is an issue in the image. To my eye,seeing these birds often, the color doesn't appear that far off...might need just a bit of tweaking.

Thanks Dave. I rather liked this crop (large as it is), with the eye of the bird at the ROT point, and the branch and cobwebs leading from the edge of the frame through the orange bill to the eye. Personal preference.